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A head-to-head contest for Sainsbury’s pounds 43 million account is

set for the autumn after M&C Saatchi this week broke Abbott Mead Vickers

BBDO’s 20-year hold on the business by landing its television

advertising brief.

The crunch will come as supermarket bosses review their decision to make

AMV pay the price for the failure of the John Cleese ’value to shout

about’ campaign in a dramatic bid to bounce back from disappointing

trading results.

M&C Saatchi’s tenure of the business is for a trial period and the

agency’s work will be scrutinised in October or November, when

Sainsbury’s will decide whether all of its advertising should be handled

by a single agency or whether the dual arrangement could continue.

In the meantime, Sainsbury’s decision to bring in M&C Saatchi - as

predicted exclusively by ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 in February - presents AMV with the

huge dilemma of either resigning the remaining business or staying on

board in the hope of winning it all back.

This week AMV senior executives were understood to be seeking a meeting

with Kevin McCarten, the Sainsbury’s marketing director, to win

assurances that there will be a level playing field when the company

reviews its new arrangement.

AMV is said to acknowledge that the Cleese campaign was ill-judged, but

believes that Sainsbury’s problems are not due exclusively to its

advertising and that the agency should be judged on the basis of two

decades of outstanding work.

Sainsbury’s is believed to be reluctant to burn its boats with AMV while

M&C Saatchi remains untested and before it can be sure that the agency’s

TV work has long-term potential.

The splitting of the account - news of which broke on ±±¾©Èü³µpk10Live on

Friday - culminates the ’Trojan horse’ strategy of M&C Saatchi since it

won the launch of Sainsbury’s banking at the end of 1996.

The turning point was M&C Saatchi’s appointment last year to carry out

an internal staff motivation project.

The agency produced three films which, although not intended for

broadcast, were shot by a commercials director and were highly praised

by Sainsbury’s managers.

The films are said to take a ’lifestyle’ approach.

Perspective, p2.